I grew up in Western Pennsylvania, halfway between Pittsburgh and Erie. Except for the sky being much bigger here, Tulsa reminds me of that area. Especially today.

My grandmother would have said it rained cats and dogs today.

Here in Oklahoma, this kind of rain makes for flash flood warnings, but growing up, this was the perfect kind of rain to play in. No lightning, just lots of water. I remember gathering every kind of container I could find and “catching rainwater” from the downspouts on the house. There was such freedom in splashing around in the puddles, not caring if you were getting wet or muddy.

It’s supposed to keep this up until Saturday, according to the weatherman. Maybe tomorrow I’ll play in the rain.

(Have you visited my site lately? I've redecorated - come see!)

Milestones of Summer

Here is the first weekend of Spring in Tulsa, 2010:

And here is the first weekend of Spring in Tulsa, 2009:

Looks like the same picture, doesn’t it.

It’s not.

I think Tulsa might be a little confused as to what constitutes “spring weather”.

(Have you visited my site lately? I've redecorated - come see!)

Welcome to Spring in Oklahoma

Ironically, on the way there, our local NPR station was playing an editorial piece written by a local guy about the recent H1N1 vaccination event held at the Tulsa Fairgrounds yesterday, and how well organized, efficient and friendly all the Department of Health personnel were. He said, “If this was any indication of how government sponsored, government run health care would work, then hurry up and pass and sign me up for the public option for healthcare!”

I chuckled, hoping our business at the DMV would go the same way.

We get there, stand in the requisite line, and when it’s our turn, are told that the State ID is not a valid form of ID.

WTF?

It seems there was some law passed in Oklahoma sometime in 2007 stating that State issued IDs are considered valid ID if issued in or after November 2007. His was issued in June of 2007.

So, back home we come to dig out his birth certificate.

As an aside, I really wonder at the purpose of a birth certificate as a form of ID. There’s no picture on it, and he certainly weighs more than the 8 pounds, 13 ounces that thing says he weighs. These knotheads are going to refuse a picture ID THEY ISSUED in favor of a piece of paper that he can just say is his. Incredible…

Anyway, back we go, birth certificate in hand. This time, they want a Social Security card and some “special” form that can only be obtained from the registrar at school that proves he’s currently enrolled and that he passed the 8th grade reading test.

Nevermind that he’s WEARING HIS FUCKING SCHOOL ID AROUND HIS NECK!

Nevermind that I have the ACTUAL DOCUMENT SIGNED BY THE ADMINISTRATOR OF THE 8TH GRADE READING TEST STATING THAT HE PASSED.

No, these are not good enough. We must produce said special form that we will have to get from the school registrar – who – you guessed it – will need to see his school ID and this signed document stating he passed the test.

But, he can go ahead and take the test, if either one of us can remember his social security number. They just won’t actually ISSUE the permit until we produce this special form from the registrar.

I looked at him and asked if he knew his SSN by heart. He looked at me like I was the one who was supposed to know it. (That’s partially my own fault because I do have all manner of numbers stuck in my head, and he knows it. Just not his SSN.)

Since they’re out of school until Monday for the Thanksgiving holiday, there’ll be no third trip to the DMV today.

I wish we’d been going for a flu shot.

(Have you visited my site lately? I've redecorated - come see!)

Milestones and the Asshats at the DMV

Yeah, that’s my street…and my oldest and youngest children almost knee-deep in rushing water. Two hours later, we just had puddles.

This is what happens when, as Second Son said when he slopped in from the bus, “Mom! It’s rainin’ out there like Jesus himself is cryin’!”

(Have you visited my site lately? I've redecorated - come see!)

So We Got a Little Rain Last Night…

Now that I’m ‘old’ and I live in Tulsa, new sounds are taking the place of those trains. We have crickets here, but they’re drowned out most nights from early spring until late fall, first by tree frogs, then by cicadas (locusts).

(Have you visited my site lately? I've redecorated - come see!)

Tree Frog Chorus

The first bit ‘o fun on the schedule was opening our pool. This is a picture of our pool, taken oh…probably at least 4 summers ago, before our house fire. Looks relaxing, doesn’t it?

Well, here’s what a house fire, a major ice storm and lack of funds last summer to address the mess has left us with:

So, being the proactive, organized planner I am (*cough*) and not being the least bit interested in tackling this project myself, I got two quotes to clean up the mess and install a new liner – one from the pool place we’ve dealt with all these years (and who replaced the liner 10 years ago after Oldest Son thought it would be cool to ride his bike in the pool) and one from a pool maintenance service here in town.

$1,580 and $1,650, respectively, were their quotes. Roughly $1,000, in each case, for the liner, alone!

Given that the ice storm caused a huge limb to come down out of the pecan tree at the back of the pool which took out the pump AND the filter in one crash landing, I still have to cough up $459 to replace those, and that doesn’t include the chemicals to get it going. So suddenly I’m looking at @$2,300 to get this pool looking like that first picture again. Not funny to me.

So, my good friend Google and I put our heads together, and we found a place online that manufactures oddball sized vinyl liners for above ground pools. I called them up, talked to a very nice man named T.L. for about 40 minutes – net result: I ordered the liner my pool requires, a custom-made-to-order one no less, for $588.96 including shipping from California. It’ll be here by the end of the month. When I asked T.L. if my kids and I could install the sucker ourselves, he said, and I quote, “Oh definitely, Suzanne. We have elderly couples who install the liners they buy from us. I’m sure you guys could handle this.”

(*This potentially could be one of the videos you’ll see here. There is a part of me that is wholly disbelieving it’ll be as easy as he makes it sound.)

Then, not one hour after bringing the pool project cost down by $1,000, before my pleased-with-myself high had worn off, there was an animal control officer at my front door writing me a $75 ticket because Cheerio, our knot-headed dog who thinks the whole neighborhood is her playground had opened the back door and gone “out to play” while I was on the phone ordering the liner.

Aside from her freakish talent for opening doors (from both the inside AND the outside), here are a few of the reasons she can get in trouble like that:

Uh yeah…so before the pool liner arrives, in addition to cleaning out the mess in the pool, we now have fence repair on the list.

But before we can do that, we have to be able to GET to the fence, and that requires de-jungle-fication:

But before we can really be effective with that, we need God to move the rain to another part of the country. I’m sure somewhere else would appreciate a two-week stint of rain like we’ve had.

It occurs to me, though, that because I live in Oklahoma, despite the fact that I live in a metropolitan area, I could go rent me a billy-goat and have the de-jungle-fication part of the project done in really short order. Seriously.

I’m not kidding.

(Have you visited my site lately? I've redecorated - come see!)

The Merry Month of May

This is PDD and Cheerio playing on the 3″ of ice on our street, which was why the kids were out of school. We had an ice storm that started on Monday around 10am, and the kids came in the door that afternoon already knowing they didn’t have school the next day. This picture was taken Wednesday afternoon after the bulk of the precipitation had fallen. They didn’t stay out long, a) because it was too cold and b) because Cheerio was being extremely uncooperative in her unwanted role as sled dog.

Here she is, later on that day. Apparently, PDD wore her out. LOL

(Have you visited my site lately? I've redecorated - come see!)

Another Ice Storm, But We Keep Power and Internet

As I sit here in my office typing (yes, all bundled up with my gloves ON) know, up front, that this is a glass-half-full tale. Let’s rewind to Sunday afternoon, shall we?

It was a record setting warm day – 75 degrees at 3pm on DECEMBER 14th! Yes, it was lovely. Kids outside playing, running around in t-shirts and shorts, blessing our good fortune that we live in lovely Tulsa, Oklahoma as we watch football games on TV where players can see their breath as they play. If we had anything to bitch about it was the crazy high winds that had been trying to blow our fair city to Texas all weekend. But hey – given the choice between seeing your breath because it’s so cold and having perfectly coiffed hair – well, I can always brush my hair.

Fast forward to 6pm. A mere 3 hours later, it is 15 DEGREES and SLEETING like nobody’s business! I shit you not. The kids got all excited, hoping they wouldn’t have school the next day. To their credit, they went to bed at normal school bedtime without too much of a fight, and before I went to bed at 11, the sleet had stopped and I was pretty confident I’d have a peaceful Monday here at home alone.

The First Surprise

I woke up before the alarm Monday morning, turned on the morning news and what to my wondering eyes should appear but every damn school district in Northeast Oklahoma closed for the day! What??!! I went to the kitchen to get the coffee started and look out at the backyard, fully expecting to see nothing but a blanket of white or a glare of ice. I remember thinking as I walked out of my bedroom, “Well, at least we still have power.” But when I looked out the window, there was no precipitation of ANY kind! I stood staring out the window, confused, waiting for the coffee to finish. Surely I was missing something, and I was fairly sure that first cup of coffee would help me make sense of it all.

Back on the bed, half-empty coffee cup in hand, I stare incredulously at the screen as the names of every school district in our half of the state rotated across the bottom of the screen. I saw the names of Tulsa businesses, too, yet didn’t ACTUALLY see Tulsa Public Schools go across the screen. When I saw my brother-in-law’s company name, I called my sister, who is usually up at the crack of dawn, but she sounded groggy when she answered the phone like she was still asleep. She told me TPS didn’t have school and asked why was I up? I told her the BIL’s company was closed and asked if that meant he could stay home too, and she said she hadn’t seen that and would have him call in to find out. After I hung up with her, I finally saw TPS at the bottom of the screen, so I went and told the kids they could go back to sleep. She called back a few minutes later to tell me that BIL had to go to work, after all, but thanks for alerting her, anyway.

I got dressed, refilled my coffee and came out here and got to work. About 9:30, I realized I was cold. So, I got up and went to turn the furnace up a little. Normally, I would not do that, but normally, it’s not 14 freakin’ degrees outside! About a half hour later, having heard the furnace kick on and off a couple of times, I realized I was colder, not warmer, so I went to investigate.

The Second Surprise

The thermostat said my house was 55 degrees! No wonder I was cold! Now, I will be the first one to admit I keep my house cold (just ask the kids – they bitch and moan about being cold all the time), but 55 degrees is a bit cold, even for me. (I keep my house about 65-68. I tell the kids to get over it, because when menopause and hot flashes set in, it will get worse, not better.)

The first phone call went out to the contractor who rebuilt my house two years ago and installed this furnace. He walked me through what he knew about how to determine the problem, and failing resolution, gave me the number of his heating and air guy who actually installed the furnace. I had to leave him a message, so in the meantime, I called my sister back, told her what was going on and asked if I would piss off my BIL if I called him at work. My darling BIL is the head of maintenance for his company, so I knew he would be able to help if the heating and air guy didn’t call me back in a timely manner. She told me to call him, so I did. I told him I just needed him as backup if the other guy couldn’t come out and he said he’d call and check on me after he got off work. He said he could probably fix my furnace in his sleep, he just couldn’t come until after work. I told him I hoped I wouldn’t have to bother him like that, but was grateful he was willing to be bothered.

The Third Surprise

The heating and air guy called back – from the hospital! He was in the waiting room, waiting to have a CAT scan done. That put the kabosh on my request, so I told him to take good care and nevermind. Before we hung up though, he gave me some good news: my furnace has a 5-year warranty so at least the required parts would be free. He apologized for not being able to come out and I told him not to worry, that I’d have my BIL here after work and we’d be fine.

My BIL came over after work and found the problem: my glow bar was not glowing. Go figure. I didn’t even know I had a glow bar, but apparently, it’s much like a glow plug in a diesel engine (with which I AM familiar) and is the heat source that ignites the gas burners. No glow, no burn, no heat. Makes sense to me. So I need to get a new glow bar.

Can’t get a new one until the parts places open up this morning, so BIL tells me to pack up the kids and come home with him. We can camp in the living room like we did last year during the ice storm. Those two words were all he had to say to ensure I and my children stayed put: ice storm. Just the thought of that crazy week reminded me that all we were really lacking was heat. We still had power, hot water, the ability to cook, phones, satellite TV and most important: we had Internet. So, life might be a little inconvenient and cold, but not unbearable.

The 6-o’clock news crazily announced there’d be no school again Tuesday, so PDD ended up bugging out to the neighbor’s to spend the night in a warm house, so it was just Second Son and I here to brave the cold, cold night. We bundled up in layers, put extra blankets on our beds, and burrowed in, TV remotes in hand, to watch TV until we warmed up and felt sleepy. Since there was no school again (I cannot explain why – we have no ice or snow on the ground, but that’s Oklahoma scaredy-cat school district officials for you) I didn’t set an alarm.

When I woke up this morning in the same position as I fell asleep, I could see my breath in the air. Oh boy. I went to the kitchen to make coffee and saw that it was 48 degrees in the house. Brrrr!!!

It’s All Relative

Regardless of the fact that I’ve had no heat in the house for two days, and typing with gloves REALLY slows me down, I have much to be grateful for:

• My furnace is under warranty so no expensive parts to buy
• I was able to locate and more importantly, GET the required part today
• My wonderful BIL is the handiest of handy men and fixed me right up this evening
• I never lost power, Internet or satellite TV – much easier to take than last year’s mess!
• According to several websites, the kids go back to school tomorrow!
• I’ve kept my sense of humor

Here’s to Wednesday! Warm, home alone and busy!

(Have you visited my site lately? I've redecorated - come see!)

I’m Not Crazy. This Is What KEEPS Me Sane!

…and I declare it a beautiful thing. I was so happy to see the rain (without the torrential downpour, lightning and thunder) that I decided not to wake up the kids. Second Son can miss a day of his summer program and PDD could definitely use the attitude adjustment some extra sleep will give her. If I didn’t have appointments this morning, I’d crawl back in bed myself, but I do, so I will sit here and enjoy the dreary view from my window. Sometimes dreary is good, you know?

(Have you visited my site lately? I've redecorated - come see!)

Summer Rain

No. Of course not.

But I did get some nice pictures of flowers which you’ll be seeing over the next few days. A shot of Dad and I is not the only shot I missed, either.

Get this: Pepper climbed the Mimosa tree to chase after the stray cat Mom & Dad have adopted and named Moondust! Yeah! the freakin’ dog was clean up in the tree! It was one of those moments that makes you think you should just live life with the camera on and ready at all times. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I’d have never believed it! But trust me, this idiot dog was way above my head. Of course, by the time I got the camera turned on and pointed her direction, she realized, “Oh shit! I’m in a tree!” and jumped back down again. Truly hilarious. The cat pretty much stays treed when we’re out there, poor thing.

Now, you know how ‘they’ say everything’s bigger in Texas? Well, I’m here to tell ya – there are some big things in Oklahoma. Mom says I’ve got these suckers at my house, that she’s seen them on my deck out back, but this is news to me. Check out these honkin’ big carpenter ants!

This is ‘life size’ too. I shit you not. These suckers are at least half an inch long, and truly could carry off not only your picnic, but your basket, too! In the ant world, these guys must be like Andre the Giant’s family or something.

So, ok, maybe I live under a rock. Maybe I spend too much time in my office and not enough outside paying attention – but still, I was pretty impressed by the size of these ants. (Not surprisingly, people are always telling me how easily entertained I can be.)

(Have you visited my site lately? I've redecorated - come see!)

Big Ants Making Themselves at Home